As the market for ‘Receiver in the Ear’ (RITE) hearing devices, in particular for hearing aids (HA's), increases, even more RITE modules with different receivers, included in a so-called speaker unit, will come to co-exist in the coming years. A strategy for identifying and distinguishing these RITE modules is needed to ensure that future HA solutions will not impose damage and/or distorted sound and/or produce uncomfortable, i.e. too loud, or too weak, sound levels to the end user in case of attaching to a hearing device a wrong speaker unit, e.g. one with a higher or lower sensitivity than expected during fitting. A mechanical differentiation between different modules is possible, e.g. by having different connectors with different mechanical properties, e.g. form factors, is possible. Such solution is, however, not attractive due to cost of production and the complexity of handling of several different variants of ‘the same’ component/module.
In practice, each speaker unit will have different physical properties, e.g. frequency response, depending firstly on receiver type and secondly on product variations within a given type. Knowledge of the exact properties, in particular but not limited to the frequency response, of a given receiver can be used to obtain a more precise amplification, possibly without requiring that the type is known in advance. Knowledge of the properties of a particular receiver is useful not only in a hearing device where the receiver is located in a separate body but also in a hearing aid, where the receiver is implemented in the hearing aid-body, e.g. in the same housing as a processing unit.
The present disclosure provides at least an alternative to the prior art.